Into the Wide Blue Yonder

 

Up, Up and Away

 

By Chief Mac – 1 July 2023

Now that I have picked on the ground forces and the navy – it is time to do the same for the air forces.

When the Army can have flying tanks and the Navy flying submarines. Well the air forces want their very own aircraft carriers – flying aircraft carriers that is.

AIRSHIP CARRIERS

Although we very rarely see rigid inflatable airships in service to national militaries today, things were much different in the early 20th century. Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin’s airships (dubbed “Zeppelins”) were proving themselves to be a useful military platform thanks to their fuel efficiency, range, and heavy payload capabilities. These massive airships were not only cost-effective, their gargantuan size also offered an added military benefit: their vast looming presence could be extremely intimidating to the enemy.

However, as you may have already guessed, it was that vast presence that also created the rigid airship’s massive weakness: it was susceptible to being shot down by even the simplest of enemy aircraft. England was the first nation to try to offset this weakness by building an apparatus that could carry and deploy three Sopwith Camel biplanes beneath the ship’s hull. They ultimately built four of these 23-class Vickers rigid airships, but all were decommissioned by the 1920s. The U. S. Navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics took notice of the concept, however, and set about construction on its own inflatable airships, with both the USS Akron (ZRS-4) and USS Macon (ZRS-5) serving as flying aircraft carriers.

23r with underslung Sopwith Camel

The airships were built with an apparatus that could not only deploy F9C-2 Curtiss Sparrowhawk biplanes, they could also recover them once again mid-flight. The airships and aircraft fell under the Navy’s banner, and the intent was to use the attached bi-planes for both reconnaissance (ship spotting) and defense, but not necessarily for offensive operations.

USS Akron (ZRS-4) Launches a Consolidated N2Y-1 training plane (Bureau # A8604) during flight tests near Naval Air Station Lakehurst, New Jersey, 4 May 1932. (U.S. Navy)

 

Airplane Aircraft Carriers

Soviet Zveno project

Zveno (Russian: Звено, a military unit "Flight") was a parasite aircraft developed in the Soviet Union during the 1930s. It consisted of a Tupolev TB-1 or a Tupolev TB-3 heavy bomber mothership and two to five fighters. Depending on the variant, the fighters either launched with the mothership or docked in flight, and they could refuel from the bomber. The definitive Zveno-SPB using a TB-3 and two Polikarpov I-16s, each armed with two 250 kg (550 lb) bombs, was used operationally as a strategic weapon system with good results against targets in Romania during the opening stages of the German-Soviet War. The same squadron later carried out an attack against a bridge on the River Dnieper that had been captured by German forces.

Zveno-SPB: TB-3-4M-34FRN with two Polikarpov I-16s armed with FAB-250 bombs

                                                      A flying carrier with three fighters attached

British Short Mayo Composite

The Short Mayo Composite was a piggy-back long-range seaplane and flying boat combination produced by Short Brothers to provide a reliable long-range air transport service to North America and, potentially, to other distant places in the British Empire and the Commonwealth.

American FICON project

GRB-36 carrying YRF-84F

The FICON (Fighter Conveyor) program was conducted by the United States Air Force in the 1950s to test the feasibility of a Convair B-36 Peacemaker bomber carrying a Republic F-84 Thunderflash parasite fighter in its bomb bay. Earlier wingtip coupling experiments included Tip Tow, which were attempts at carrying fighters connected to the wingtips of bombers. Tom-Tom followed the FICON project afterwards.

GRB-36 carrying YRF-84F

Project MX-1016 (Tip Tow)

The MX-1018 program (code named "Tip Tow") sought to extend the range of jets to give fighter protection to piston-engined bombers with the provision for in-flight attachment/detachment of the fighter to the bomber via wingtip connections.[1][2] The Tip Tow aircraft consisted of a specially modified ETB-29A (serial number 44-62093) and two EF-84D (serial numbers 48-641 and 48-661). A number of flights were undertaken, with several successful cycles of attachment and detachment, using at first a single aircraft, then two. The pilots of the F-84s maintained manual control when attached, with roll axis maintained by elevator movement rather than aileron movement. Engines on the F-84s were shut down to save fuel during the "tow" by the mother ship, and in-flight engine restarts were successfully accomplished.

EB-29A docked wingtip-to-wingtip with two EF-84Ds in Project Tip-Tow

Project Tom-Tom

In parallel, a similar configuration, called Tom-Tom, was being developed using JRB-36F 49-2707, which was previously used in the early FICON trials and two RF-84F (serial numbers 51-1848 and 51-1849). The aircraft were attached wingtip-to-wingtip using articulated arms and clamps. Although several successful hookups were performed by Convair pilots Doc Witchell, Beryl Erickson, and Raymond Fitzgerald in 1956, turbulence and vortices continued to present a major problem. On 23 September 1956, RF-84F 51-1849, piloted by Beryl Erickson, was actually torn away from the right wing tip of the JRB-36F. All aircraft landed safely but the concept was deemed too dangerous. Developments in the area of inflight refueling at the time promised a much safer way of extending the range of the fighters and Project Tom-Tom was canceled.

RF-84F 51-1848 approaches the left wing tip of the JRB-36F as a Lockheed T-33A flies chase over the Texas countryside in 1955

Convair B-36 Peacemaker

The B-36 Peacemaker strategic bomber was at one point in the 1950s intended to function as an airborne aircraft carrier for up to four McDonnell F-85 Goblin parasite fighters. Operational F-85-carrying B-36s were to have been capable of refueling and rearming their fighters in flight, while deploying and recovering them on a trapeze-like structure similar to that of the Akron and the Macon. No B-36 was ever equipped to carry the F-85, however, and the two prototypes only flew from a single modified B-29. These were to be stored partially within one of the bomb-bays of the B-36.

XF-85 suspended from an EB-29 via a trapeze

XF-85 serial number 46-523 in the National Museum of the United States Air Force

Lockheed CL-1201

The CL-1201 design project studied a nuclear-powered aircraft of extreme size, with a wingspan of 1,120 feet (340 m). Had it been built, it would have had the largest wingspan of any airplane to date,[1] and more than twice that of any aircraft of the 20th century.

The wing would be of crescent form, similar to the British Handley Page Victor V-bomber, but unlike the British design, it was tailless.

Power would be derived from the heat generated by a nuclear reactor and transferred to four jet engines near the rear, where it would superheat the air passing through to provide thrust. The craft would be capable of staying airborne for long periods of time, with an estimated endurance of 41 days. At low altitudes, the jets would burn conventional aviation fuel. In order to take off, the plane required 182 additional vertical lift engines.

Two variants were studied, a logistics support aircraft and an airborne aircraft carrier. There was a rumored third variant, but information on such a model has never been made public.

The logistics support variant would have a conventional heavy transport role, carrying hundreds of troops and their equipment at once.

The airborne aircraft carrier would have carried up to 22 fighter aircraft externally and would have an internal dock capable of handling two air-to-ground shuttle transport aircraft.

 

Lockheed CL-1201

 

Boeing 747 AAC 

The Boeing 747 has already secured its place in the pantheon of great aircraft, from its immense success as a passenger plane to its varied governmental uses like being a taxi for the Space Shuttle or as a cargo aircraft. The 747 has proven itself to be an extremely capable aircraft for a wide variety of applications, so it seemed logical when, in the 1970s, the U.S. Air Force began experimenting with the idea of converting one of these large aircraft into a flying aircraft carrier full of “parasite” fighters that could be deployed, and even recovered, in mid-air.

This page was compiled and posted by Chief Mac, 07/01/23